Rumana Ali

Experience & Activities

Rumana Ali has built a distinguished career in gender, human rights, and development research through long-term engagement with leading research and development institutions. She served as Senior Research Associate at the Research and Evaluation Division of BRAC, where she contributed to research design, data collection, field supervision, data analysis, report writing, publication support, and stakeholder presentation. During her tenure at BRAC, she also served as Gender Focal Point, supporting gender-inclusive workplace practices and contributing to institutional gender equality goals. She later worked as Senior Research Associate at the Brac Institute of Governance and Development, Brac University, where she contributed to formative and evaluation research, programme reviews, knowledge-sharing activities, seminars, workshops, and capacity development of junior researchers in qualitative research and gender analysis. Her experience in both institutional research and field-based evaluation has strengthened her ability to connect evidence with practical program improvement.

As a consultant, Rumana has worked on several gender-focused assignments across education, livelihood, WASH, disaster preparedness, women’s leadership, domestic workers’ rights, civil society engagement, and policy analysis. Her assignments include gender-focused impact evaluation of the Reaching Out of School Children Project, midterm evaluation of a plastic-waste value creation project, Oxfam-supported baseline assessment on community preparedness and recovery, women’s transformative leadership impact study among Rohingya and host communities, and technical gender research on sextortion in the WASH sector. Rumana has also contributed to gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation training supported by UNDP, policy analysis on domestic workers’ protection and welfare, and a political economy analysis on civil society engagement in policy-making. These assignments demonstrate her ability to combine gender-sensitive research methods, participatory approaches, policy insight, and practical recommendations for inclusive development programming.

Her academic background further strengthens her professional expertise. She holds an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Lodz, Poland and the University of Oviedo, Spain, along with an MSS in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Dhaka, where she achieved first class first position. She has also published journal articles, book chapters, monographs, and BRAC research reports on gender equality, women’s empowerment, child sexual violence, WASH participation, gender roles, and human rights. Through her work, Rumana Ali continues to support ART Lab’s mission of producing ethical, inclusive, and evidence-based research. As a Gender Expert, she plays a valuable role in strengthening gender-responsive study design, inclusive field implementation, data interpretation, policy recommendations, and knowledge products that contribute to meaningful social impact.